The advance in knowledge and useful new factors based on such knowledge are all too frequently put aside as if they were not produced means of produc… - Theodore Schultz

There are comparatively few significant inefficiencies in the allocation of the factors of production in traditional agriculture.

Most people in the world are poor. If we knew the economy of being poor, we would know much of the economics that really matter. Most of the world's poor people earn their living in agriculture. If we knew the economics of agriculture, we would know much of the economic of being poor.

The adverse economic events following the First World War turned me toward economics... I learned during my youth how hard it was for farm families to stay solvent. Farm product prices fell abruptly by more than half. Banks went bankrupt and many farmers suffered foreclosures. Was politics or economics to blame? I opted for economics.